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The article discusses a rebirth of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, née Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and its use of an X-ray laser, reportedly the world's first. It notes director and particle physicist Persis Drell and SLAC's redefined mission including X-ray studies, materials science, and structural biology. Relations between SLAC and the U.S. Department of Energy, its owner, are noted. The X-ray laser, called the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), was started on April 10, 2009 and experiments reportedly were initiated a week before publication of the article. Criticism by unnamed particle physicists is noted regarding the decision to abandon SLAC's last particle collider called PEP-II.

The article presents information on the California High School Cosmic Ray Observatory (CHICOS), an array of detectors stretching across the roofs of 70 high schools and middle schools in metropolitan Los Angeles, California. Unlike typical high-school science projects, CHICOS aims to do cutting-edge research by probing the nature of cosmic rays. CHICOS is one of several arrays that have sprouted up across North America and Europe. Using salvaged parts, a little newfangled electronic gadgetry, and student labor, particle physicists are outfitting schools from rural Nebraska to downtown Amsterdam with simple, inexpensive cosmic ray detectors. Cosmic rays enable educators to bring science to the students instead of busing the students to visit some distant lab, says Gregory; Snow, a physicist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, and leader of the Cosmic Ray Observatory Project, an array, with detectors at 26 schools across the state. The National Science Foundation has funded several of the arrays, and the primary goal of the projects is education, says Randal Ruchti, a program officer in experimental particle physics at the foundation.

The article reports on the reason why the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California will change its name. SLAC will change its name because the Stanford University would not let the Department of Energy (DOE) to claim its name. It is caused by the want of DOE to trademark the names of its 17 national labs to minimize trademark suits against the government. It is also brought by the want of the university to protect its name according to former SLAC director Burton Richter.

The article reports on the effects of the 2008 budget cut at the United States' Department of Energy to its particle physics program called the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Fermilab and SLAC will have to lay off hundreds of their employees because of the unexpected budget cut. SLAC will also have to shut down PEP-II collider in March 2008 while Fermilab will shut down their Tevatron collider in Batavia, Illinois to cope with the 2008 budget.

The article presents information on the experiment conducted by physicists of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, California to test the matter-antimatter asymmetry as postulated under the standard model of particles. The standard model explains that the atomic nuclei consists of smaller particles called up quarks and down quarks. These particles have two sets of quarks; the heavier quarks, and the massive quarks. The heavier quarks through interaction can transform into lighter ones.

This article reports that the fat-rimmed disk of silica used by physicist Kerry Vahala and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California is an optical microcavity that rings with light of distinct frequencies, just as a soda bottle whistles at specific pitches. Optical microcavities control lasers in CD and DVD players, and higher-quality cavities that can hold more light might help shuttle photons through "photonic" circuits. This week, the Caltech researchers report online in the journal "Optics Express," that light coursing through a microcavity can set the thing in motion. In the experiment, light from a nearby optical fiber bled into the disk and raced around its rim. Pressure from the circulating light set the disk vibrating. The vibrations stretched the disk and altered the frequency of the light in telltale ways, the researchers found. Theorists had predicted that light pressure might cause an optical cavity to vibrate, but the rattling caught the researchers off-guard. The effect could prove useful, says Ming Wu, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. For example, researchers are already developing micrometer-sized mechanical oscillators that interact with microwaves. So the light-to-vibrations connection might make it possible to control microwaves with light.